1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to managing and modeling database and resource performance and, in particular, to computer systems and methods for predictive performance management of data transactions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Although the architectural role of the database has reduced in significance from its highly prominent role in the client-server era, application performance continues to remain closely linked to database performance. For example, the database is often required to perform significant amounts of physical disk input/output (I/O) and disk I/O relative to disk sizes and CPU speeds. Also, in multi-tier applications, although middleware layers can be more easily scaled through clustering and load balancing, the database can be more difficult to cluster. For example, for many applications, scaling out the database server is far more difficult than scaling out the application or web servers.
In view of the foregoing, the life of a database administrator (DBA) can be a stressful one. Constant vigilance is needed to ensure database uptime and performance, but despite all due diligence, databases can frequently experience periods of diminished performance. From a business perspective, the cost of database performance “brown outs” can be massive. For online commerce sites, poor performance is a leading cause of lost sales. For mission critical enterprise resource planning or customer relationship management systems, the result can be a substantial loss of productivity. These performance crises can place extreme pressure for quick resolution from the DBA. “Band aid” solutions are, thus, often applied to symptoms, leaving fundamental causes of database performance degradation unresolved.